• Sales / Installation / Upgrades - Hardware and Software.
• Networking : Microsoft Windows 2000/3 Network Administration and Installation.
• Customer Support Centre - Hardware Maintenance and general Support contracts managed via a Customer Support Centre for call logging and delegation to give you the best service possible.
• Contractors available for casual or relief site support.
• Lotus Notes / Domino Installation / Upgrades/ Development

DISASTER RECOVERY

Ten Steps to your Disaster Recovery (DR) Plan
Although disaster recovery doesn't seem to be relevant to the daily noise and activity that IT managers have to deal with, you'll be glad you have one in place if you need it!

1. Select a coordinator to develop DR Planning objectives, a methodology and an overview.
2. Identify critical business processes and systems.
3. Formulate hardware system and end-user recovery objectives, and identify critical network operations. Assess threats — fire, environmental contamination, physical and software security. Plan for the worst, so you'll be prepared for every eventuality.
4. Create a records-retention procedure.
5. Implement a backup and storage strategy. Make sure your solution is executable in a short period of time. The survival of the company may depend upon the speed with which the infrastructure can be rebuilt.
6. Define and test storage, backup and application systems.
7. Identify an alternate site for staff to work from and contract with provisioning vendors. Having an alternate site for temporarily relocating IT facilities, as well as people, is essential. As part of this plan, important considerations include new network connections, hardware and software replacements, and a way to install all of this. Of course, knowing what's installed is an important piece of this plan, which means that a current inventory of hardware and software should be stored offsite. Going even further, storing current images of desktops offsite would also be wise, to make restoring desktops much quicker and easier. Accurate and current documentation of the IT infrastructure, such as network topology and configurations, must be properly stored on a regular basis. Look at how many people are needed and what their responsibilities should be. Another aspect of the people issue involves automation, particularly where the collective knowledge of the people managing the IT infrastructure is not totally in the heads of those people. Use technologies like policy-based management, root-cause analysis, and knowledge bases to put information within the systems and processes. That way, the organization is less dependent on the knowledge of specific people. As a part of the disaster recovery plan, keep necessary contacts on hand - your company's regular phone company contact, your hardware and software vendor contacts, etc. Outsourcers and service providers are also viable alternatives for temporary relocation of functions.
8. Develop network recovery and relocation strategies, as well as replacement options for hardware and service. Businesses that rely on their office locations should ensure they have access to an uninterruptible power supply. Critical questions include how long auxiliary generators can run and whether enough fuel is stored for them on-site. For example, give key personnel laptops so they can access online backup data and Web-based e-mail systems even if the power is interrupted.
9. Implement a hot site. It's critical that redundancy is built into the system, so that if a site is hit with a disaster, those functions can be quickly restarted at another location. This means that for those systems whose processes are critical to the survival and continuity of the business, there should be redundant systems in place that can take over in the event of a disaster.
10. Define teams, develop notification tree, document disaster-recovery plan and test plan. Keep copies of the plan stored in geographically dispersed locations. Revisit your plan and update it on a regular basis, so that it's kept relevant and adjusts to the changes that are normal in most IT

CTC can help you with your disaster recovery planning ...just contact us!